By Martin Hellicar
TWO ISRAELI nationals yesterday pleaded not guilty to charges of spying against military positions in Cyprus in October and November this year.
The Larnaca Assizes court rejected a second defence request that suspects Udi Hargov, 37, and Igal Damary, 49, be released into the custody of the Israeli embassy in Nicosia till the start of their trial, set for January 20.
“The court cannot approve what would in essence be private arrangements for the holding of suspects,” said presiding judge Dimitris Hadjihambis in rejecting the defence appeal for the suspects’ release into the embassy’s care on bail.
A similar defence appeal to the Larnaca District court during a remand hearing last month was also rejected.
This time round, defence lawyer Andis Triantafyllides brought in the big guns, calling the Israeli embassy’s consul, Michel Arel, to the witness stand to guarantee, on behalf of the Israeli government, that the suspects would reappear before the court on the set date.
“Israel is a democracy where citizens’ freedom is considered very important and because we know the suspects are not guilty of a crime the Foreign Ministry of Israel has authorised me to give guarantees that they will reappear if they are released from police custody,” Arel, speaking through a translator, told the court.
Israel has already made it plain that it wants the two spying suspects – who were arrested in a holiday flat in the Larnaca district coastal village of Zigy on November 7 – sent home. On a visit to the Island last week, Israel’s former Prime Minister Shimon Peres stated his government wanted Hargov and Damary returned, saying they had been “fighting terrorism” and not spying against Cyprus or any other country.
Israel has not denied the two suspects might have been Mossad agents but insists they were not spying for Turkey.
“They will be kept in an embassy flat and will be watched 24 hours a day,” Arel promised, adding that the embassy was willing to post any bail.
He said Hargov and Damary would not be able to leave the embassy flat without Cyprus police, who man a guard post outside the embassy, seeing them.
The court was unmoved by Arel’s promises or by Triantafyllides’ argument that the prosecution case was “weak” and unlikely to lead to a conviction.
Triantafyllides, one of three local lawyers defending the Israelis, said police had no concrete evidence against his clients. He said a key piece of police “evidence” – a map police claim to have found at the suspects’ flat with sites of “military importance” circled on it – was nothing but a tourist map with sites of archaeological and cultural interest marked on it.
Speaking after a half-hour recess to consider the bail application, judge Hadjihambis said the evidence before the court was enough to justify the suspects’ remand. He said the court had no reason to doubt the adequacy of security arrangements at the Israeli embassy, but noted that this was “not the issue” at stake.
The court had no jurisdiction to approve the suggested alternative custody arrangements, the judge said.
“The court cannot by law do this,” Hadjihambis said.
At the start of yesterday’s proceedings, police prosecutor George Papaioannou read out three revised charges to Hargov and Damary.
They were charged with conspiring, between October 15 and November 6 this year, “in Cyprus and Israel” to spy against “military facilities” with the intention of collecting information “that could be useful to any other state.”
The second charge alleges similar information was collected at Zygi village during the same period. The third charge relates to possession “without permission from the cabinet” of three listening devices capable of tuning in to radio frequencies.
Police say they found devices tuned into police frequencies at the suspect’s flat on November 7.
The accused replied “not guilty” to all three charges – the only words they spoke throughout the two-hour court proceedings yesterday.
The charges read out yesterday were an apparently watered down version of the original charges read out in court on November 20, when it was alleged Hargov and Damary had “collected information on the defence of the Republic and passed this on to another country via computer.” The original charges also made no mention of Israel.
The suspects, the beards they had sported during their last court appearance gone, did not appear too distressed by the rejection of their bail appeal. They smiled and chatted to their lawyers and Arel before being handcuffed and led off to a black police Maria to be driven to Nicosia central prison.
The hearing was again accompanied by tight security, with about a dozen armed members of the police rapid reaction unit (MMAD) guarding the court house.
Cyprus-Israeli relations have been seriously strained by the arrests of Hargov and Damary. The arrests came only three days after an official visit to the island by Israeli President Ezer Weizman. Weizman failed to pacify the government’s concern over his country’s military pact with Turkey.
